


My Neighbor Bert McCracken

by MusicalSense



Category: My Chemical Romance, The Used
Genre: Catholicism, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Nerd Gerard Way, Recreational Drug Use, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Trans Male Character, and they were ROOMMATES, bert mccracken is so uncool he does a 180 and becomes cool again, discussions of religion, every bert i write is trans ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2020-12-13 23:50:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21006215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalSense/pseuds/MusicalSense
Summary: “You really like that.” Gerard says.“Like what?”“Monologuing.”Bert sets the can down and wipes his mouth on the back of his knitted gloves. “I feel like this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yall this is dumb. My friend read it and said it's dumb, but in a good way. There is no plot. Enjoy.

Ding-dong. 

The doorbell rings. 

Gerard thought it was currently broken since the dude next door punched the cover box in and and stuck it back together with chewing gum but maybe it’s been fixed.  
He opens the door and looks into the eyes of a guy in a vampire costume, cape lined with bright red polyester and everything. He blinks, looks behind himself, left, right, then straight ahead again. The vampire is still there.

“Hello.” He says.

Without moving his head, he looks left, right, towards the clock, and then again straight ahead at the vampire.

“Hello.” Gerard says.

“I just moved in across the hall from you and wanted to make pancakes but I’ve run out of eggs.”

“Just a second” Gerard says, walks towards the kitchen, and comes back with two eggs. “There you go.”

“Thanks!” The vampire says. He puts the eggs into a hidden pouch in the lining of his cape (coat?) and smiles at Gerard. He’s wearing fake fangs. There’s drool on his chin.

Gerard nods and closes the door. He chews on the nail of his thumb and wrinkles his nose when he feels some of the black polish on it chipping. Is it dangerous to ingest nail polish chippings? He’s heard of people who died from plastic fumes but he’s not actually snorting nail polish so he should be fine, right? Right.

The bell rings again. Gerard opens the door right away since he’s still standing right behind it.

“Oh. Hehe.” Says the vampire, giggling nervously. “Wow okay, that was fast. Uh. I also forgot to buy salt so I was wondering if-“

Gerard walks back towards the kitchen to fetch the salt.

“And if you maybe have some flour and milk that’d be great!”

He nods and keeps walking.

“Thanks!” The vampire says. He’s lisping, Gerard notices. Maybe it’s the teeth.

Two minutes later, the doorbell rings again. Gerard holds out a pan and a mixing bowl.

“Thank you!” Says the vampire. He grabs the pan and stuffs it into his cape’s pockets. Gerard wonders what else he keeps in there. If he concentrates, he can hear a faint clinking sound when the other man moves. “If you could maybe lend me a something to stir, a fork or perhaps even a whisk…?”

Gerard nods. Ten minutes later, the bell chimes again. “No stove.” Shrugs the vampire. Gerard nods. “Kitchen’s on the right.” He says.

He watches the vampire trying to assemble pancakes in his kitchen but the sleeves of his ruffly blouse keep dipping into the batter. After a while, Gerard takes over.

“My name’s Bert.” Says the vampire. Bert. Whatever.

“I’m Gerard. Gerard Way.” Gerard says and tries to flip the pancake. It cracks in half and he uses some of the leftover batter to stick it back together.

“I know.” Says Bert. “It says so beneath the doorbell. ‘Gerard A. Way’. What’s the A stand for? Anton? Adam?”

“Uh.” Says Gerard.

“Anyways do you have anything we could put onto those bad boys? Syrup or nutella or anything like that?”

“I’d have to go to the store for nutella.”

“That’s alright, I’ll watch over the stove while you go get it. I saw a convenience store right on the other side of the road when I moved in.”

Gerard puts on two of his striped scarves and grabs his keys. He throws one last look over his shoulder. Bert is currently poking a pancake with a spatula and swaying his hips to a rhythm only he can hear. His cape is a little too long and drags on the ground, Gerard notices.

On his way back he runs into Ray and Bob from the big first story apartment. 

“Have you seen the new guy?” Bob asks and strokes his neckbeard. It’s not really a beard. But. It is definitely fuzz. On his neck.

“A little shifty looking, isn’t he?” Hm, maybe it is a neckbeard. It’s kind of hard to tell.

“Shut up Bob, you’re just jealous because you don’t have a cape.” Ray says and rolls his eyes. His left hand is currently stuck inside a pickle jar filled with mayonnaise. Gerard decides not to ask.

“I’m just sayin’ man! Dude looks too much like a weasel for my taste! I bet he’s one of Iero’s cousins. Fucking Italians, taking over the whole house.”

Gerard wonders if he should feel attacked. Does Bob know that he’s part Italian? Better not ask. He tells his goodbyes and goes back to his flat to find possibly-italian-Bert extinguishing a small kitchen fire. There are scorch marks on his face. The left cuff of his blouse is missing.

“Did you get it?” He asks, a wild look in his eyes. “Did you get the nutella?”

***

Knock-knock. There’s someone at the door. Who could it be, at this time of the day? Gerard opens the door.

“Hello!” Says Bert and waves. “Can I come in?”

“Ah. You.” Gerard steps aside. 

He’s not wearing the vampire costume today. Reluctantly, he has to admit to himself that Bert looks really nice without the fake fangs and the drool. Sadly he also exchanged the ruffled shirt for a plain t-shirt and hoodie. Gerard doesn’t know what it is about lace details and V-necks that’s so attractive to him but in his book ruffled blouses are always a plus. He thinks back to the Pirates Of The Caribbean themed Halloween party he went to last year. That was a good night, even if it did make interacting with Frank a little awkward for a while.

“Do you like Nirvana?” Bert asks.

“The band?”

“No, the afterlife. Of course the band.”

“It’s alright I guess. Nevermind was the first record I bought for myself back then.”

“Really?”

“No.” Gerard admits. “But I wish it was.”

“Do you mind if I put this on?” Bert asks and pulls a vinyl from… somewhere. This is decidedly more impressive now that he’s not wearing the cloak-cape hybrid. His clothes are still mostly black with a few red accents though. Gerard likes that about him. He can respect someone who picks a color scheme and sticks to it.

“Go ahead.” He shrugs and points at his record player. Load up on guns, briiiing your friends…

“Can I ask you what you do for a living?” Bert inquires. 

He kicks off his converse hightops and pulls his feet up onto the armchair he’s currently lounging in. His feet are bare and Gerard wrinkles his nose. He’s got weirdly long toes. The nails are painted pink.

“Why?”

“Oh, just cos you’re still wearing pajamas at two in the afternoon. Well, you’re wearing sweatpants and a batman shirt but since you wore that when I came asking for toilet paper last night and since I haven’t actually seen you leave the house in like a week…”

“Oh.” Gerard says. “Okay. Uhm. I guess I’m an… artist? Sort of?”

“Oh neat!” Bert exclaims and puts his chin into his hands. “What kinda art do you do?”

“Uh, I do some inking for like, comic books? And I’m also working on some own stuff.”

“So you’re a professional nerd!” Bert grins. Gerard thinks of the sword hanging above his bed. That’s not a nerd thing, right? Katanas are totally badass.

“Here we are now entertain us!” Kurt Cobain sings. Bert twirls a strand of brown hair around his finger.

“What do you do?” Gerard asks.

“I’m a communist.”

“Oh.”

“Got a problem with that?”

“No, no.” Gerard thinks for a second. “Trotsky?”

“Ho chi minh.” Bert corrects. Gerard nods. “And what do you do in your free time?”

“Oh this and that.” Bert says and lights a smoke with a lighter shaped like a very small bell pepper. “You don’t mind if I smoke, right? You smell like you had one like ten minutes ago.” He takes a drag. Gerard shrugs. He gave up on getting the smell out of his furniture long ago. 

“In my free time I do vocals for a local punk band. We make absolutely no money and live miserable lives. Oh, and I work towards ending capitalism, first here in New Jersey, then globally.”

“I thought that was part of being a communist.” Gerard wonders if he should mention the guitar he keeps under his bed. Maybe Bert would think it’s cool that he started playing in high school, even if he sucks.

“Communism isn’t just a job you do from nine to five, dude.” Bert says and blows a smoke ring. “It’s a worldview, man. Like, I can sit in my apartment plotting away, writing my opus magnum all I want, but if I don’t haul my ass to a demonstration and shove my fucking signs into the faces of some underpaid reporters, really, what is any of it worth?”

“That makes sense.” Gerard says, kind of breathily. Bert looks really pretty when he’s passionate about something. Still unwashed and kinda creepy, but pretty.  
Bert looks deep into his eyes, then at the coffee table. 

“What are those?”

“Pringles.” Gerard says. “Sour cream and onion. You can have them, I don’t really like them anyways.”

Bert takes one and turns it in his hands. “Fucking staple chips. They are uniform, flavor enhanced, bad for your health, and absolutely delicious.” He takes a big, angry bite, sending crumbs cascading down the armchair and into Gerard’s extra fluffy rug. “They represent everything I hate about the industry. That’s why they’re so fun to destroy.”

“You really like that.” Gerard says.

“Like what?”

“Monologuing.”

Bert sets the can down and wipes his mouth on the back of his knitted gloves. “I feel like this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

***

Bert invited Gerard over for dinner after realizing how hopeless he is in the kitchen. He’s pretty sure that last weeks risotto was the last straw. 

“Come over at 7pm.” Bert had said. When Gerard arrives at five past seven, Bert has already started eating. 

“You’re late.” He says. 

“I like everything except spinach.” Gerard had answered when Bert asked if he had any allergies. They’re having spinach.

“I do not like spinach.” Gerard says, a little desperate.

“Yeah and that’s why you have the complexion of a young victorian boy about to faint from iron deficiency. What, are you gonna go missing near the lake under mysterious circumstances next week?” 

Bert’s wearing a lot of pink today. Pink bracelet, striped pink cardigan, pink wool in his hair, and pink eyeshadow. 

“Seriously Gee, you gotta eat some vegetables. You’re not a teenager anymore.”

Maybe he just has pinkeye. Bert doesn’t look like he practices proper eyeliner etiquette. That’s the thing with pink eyeshadow, it always lands somewhere between oh-he’s-cute and oh-he’s-dying. Which would actually fit his vampire outfit…

“I do eat vegetables.” Gerard mumbles.

“The pineapple you had in your pizza rolls does not count as a vegetable Gerard.”

Gerard rolls his eyes. They had gone out for pizza rolls the night before and eaten them on the steps of the fire escape. He’d actually had to wake Bert in order to get him going because apparently he doesn’t keep as weird hours as Gerard does. It’s a hazard of the job, he figures. His creative juices only just start flowing around midnight.

Apropos juices… “Fine.” Gerard grabs his fork and stabs a spinach covered potato, but he says it like ‘fuck you’ so Bert knows that he’s not doing this voluntarily.

Shit, he thinks. Shit goddamnit. Apparently Bert can make spinach taste good. Motherfucker.

Bert grins smugly. There’s spinach between his teeth. 

The conversation they had on the fire escape was actually quite enlightening. While Bert did have some strong opinions pizza etiquette (“Gerard Archibald Way, you sack of a man. Pineapple? Really?”), he was not actually italian or related to Frank Iero which. Thank god actually. It would’ve been kind of weird if he tried to pursue the cousin of the dude he sucked off while dressed as Elisabeth Swan just because he looked quite fetching in a pirate costume. 

“I’m not gonna get scurvy just because I don’t eat spinach, you know?” He complains. 

“Maybe, but I think I should do the cooking from now on, just to be safe.” Bert says...

And as he watches him smile into his food, Gerard gets the creeping suspicion that A) Working up to that statement had been Bert’s goal the whole time and B) It’s in fact not an empty promise.

***

“Nietzsche is dead.” Bert says, takes a hit off the blunt, and gives it back to Gerard. “God.”

“Stop. What.” says Gerard, takes a hit off the blunt, and gives it back to Bert. “Our conversation until now has been about whether ketchup goes well with donuts or not.”

“I just wanted to mention it.” Bert says, takes a hit off the blunt, blows a smoke ring. He pulls out his packer and tosses it at Gerard's head. 

“Mention what?” Gerard asks, picks it up, and tosses it back. Bert doesn't move to catch it and turns to face Gerard instead.

“I used to not believe in all that jazz, you know? Grew up with a pastor as a dad and pretty much rejected any religious beliefs my parents were tryna hammer into my head. Now I’m agnostic.”

“Okay.” Gerard says and takes the blunt from Bert. “Are you asking me if I’m religious?”

“Guess I am.”

Gerard blows smoke at a mosquito that started sucking on his arm. Maybe doing this on the balcony wasn’t the best idea.

“Not really. I mean, with all the bad in the world, it gets kinda hard to believe in a higher power, right? Like, for example.” He slaps at the mosquito. Boom. Dead. “Look at Kurt Cobain. Talented, successful, incredibly hot.”

“Cheers, I’ll drink to that bro.”

“But then he just fucking. Kills himself. Like, why’d he get such a shitty brain? Why do people get shitty brains or families or, or… lives. Like, why does all the bad shit happen to the good people?” He gives the blunt back to Bert.

“That’s the problem.” Bert says and blows two smoke rings. The second one transforms into pacman and swallows the first. “If god is almighty and god is good, we should live in the best possible world, right? But take a look around.” He gestures wildly. “Since that’s obviously not the case he’s either not almighty or not good.”

Gerard nods. Bert blows a smoke dragon. It gets chased by smoke pacman. Smacman. “God ain’t no DJ.”

Bert laughs. It’s funny, Gerard thinks, that Bert’s speaking voice is so much lower than Gerards speaking voice but when he sings or laughs it gets all high and... bright. 

“Exactly!” He exclaims. “I mean, look at humans for example. It’s said that we were created after god’s example, which is huge fucking bullshit if you believe in a good god. But what if he isn’t good? What if he’s just a real dickswab? Makes a lot more sense if you ask me.”

“God is a DJ.” Gerard mumbles. “A DJ who plays Rammstein at a kids birthday party.”

“At least now I never have to ask why.” Bert says. “Because.” 

A few moments pass. “Do you need your living room?” Bert asks.

“What? Why?”

“Just wondering.” Bert says.

“You know, I actually wanted to become a priest.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.” They both giggle. Gerard takes the dying blunt from Bert and finishes it.

“Why?”

He shrugs. “Catholic guilt? Edgy teenage phase? I don’t know man. But like, imagine how our lives would be if I joined the fucking clergy.” He shakes his head at the thought. A pigeon shits on Bert’s head.

“I know what’s up!” He yells at the sky. “I know where you live!”

*** 

Bert has moved in with Gerard. You can’t actually tell unless you notice the hammock in the living room or the long hairs in the shower or the stench of bleach in the bathroom.

“I submitted an art piece inspired by our conversation a few weeks ago.” Gerard tells the lump in the hammock. “The gallery put up all my other pieces except for that one”

“What was it called?” The lump asks.

“God is no DJ.”

“Hm.” 

“Yeah.” Gerard considers it for a moment. “Actually, I’m kinda glad they didn’t show it. Some religious midwesterners could’ve taken that the wrong way and… I don’t know, burned some flags.”

Bert raises his head out of the hammock. His hair is blond and a little shorter now. He has a pillow crease on his left cheek. “Does New Jersey have a flag?”

Gerard shrugs. 

Bert thinks. “They could’ve used Ray’s roommate.” He says. “The small one.”

“Frank?”

“Yeah, Frank. Fucker’s got more New Jersey tattoos than I can count.”

“He has like three of them.”

“You overestimate my mathematical abilities.”

“Fair.” Gerard says. “You know, on one hand I don’t wanna step on people’s toes because like. Imagine you’re taught your whole life that there’s this higher being and you believe in it and it helps you through some tough shit in life and then someone comes up to you and they’re like, hey, that being doesn’t exist. Like, I’d be pissed too.”

“You know, l never really get it why people get angry at you when you insult their god and try to fight you because of it. I mean, if Bob trashtalks you I’m not gonna deck him in the face, I’m just gonna tell you and you can choose to take care of it or like, not. Your problem.”

Gerard nods thoughtfully. “Actually, please do deck him in the face if he shittalks me, I’m not very good at punching people and you’re kinda scary when you get angry.”

“Noted.” Bert says. “Now, why can’t god just take care of his own shit? If they’d trust him to do that, they wouldn’t have to threaten you, right? But that’s always the thing, they claim to believe in him but they are not completely sure either.”

“You know, when my brother was little people asked him what ten plus two was and he said ‘I believe it’s eleventy.’ which was like, super cute but sadly also wrong.”

“Yeah.” Bert says. “But your brother didn’t crucify anyone when they told him that eleventy didn’t exist.”

“No.” Gerard agrees. “He was too young for that.” 

Bert gets up from the hammock. Well, he actually gets down, because he only seems to be capable of exiting it by rolling to the side and falling to the floor like a sack of flour. A sack of flour dressed in a ratty cardigan, cuffed jeans, and converse high tops. He grabs a can of pringles from his stash behind the wilting cacti.

“On one hand.” Gerard muses over the sound of crunching chips. “I admire people who find a hill they would die on and then defend it. On the other hand, it’s kinda dumb. Like, sure, objectively I know that the new star wars movies are all dumb cash grabs but if someone insults the franchise to my face I’m still gonna argue with them.”

“Really?” Bert asks. “You’d defend that crap?”

“Be careful what you say.” Gerard says and grabs his lightsaber from the glowing wall display.

“Dude, you can’t threaten me with that; that’s literally just a piece of pla- ouch, ouch, what the fuck, stop!”


	2. Chapter 2

Ding-dong.

Gerard rings the doorbell.

The door opens and he locks eyes with Bert. Bert blinks, looks behind himself, left, right, then straight ahead again. Gerard is still there.

“Forgot my keys.” He says.

“Hello again.” Bert says, throws up a peace sign and disappears back into the living room.

Gerard follows along, dragging his duffel bag across the floor and falls face first onto the couch. Ow. That hurts. He picks up the round reading glasses digging into his cheek and places them on the coffee table. He looks around the room.

Bert is in his hammock again, the Nirvana poster on the wall is still missing the pin in the top left corner, even the empty pizza box under the table is in the same place as before.

“Ask me how the convention was.” He says.

“How was the convention?” Bert asks without looking up from his book. Gerard tilts his head. ‘Biohacking For Dummies’. Interesting.

“Well, we were mostly there to warm up the crowd before the signing with all the actually famous people, right? So we did this thing I told you about, where James plays the guitar and I sing that one song about how much the Joker sucks like, as a villain.”

“Hard disagree but carry on.” Bert says.

“Anyways remember that part towards the end that’s like ‘Hey what if he got his ass kicked by Harley’ and then we go into the chant thing?”

“Har-Ley-Quinn. For-The-Win?” Bert chants, unenthusiastically.

“Exactly! Well, no one joined in even though I asked them to.”

“Hm.” Bert says.

“And like, I get it, DC fans waiting for a panel with the cast of the new Joker movie aren't really our target demographic, but that doesn’t mean they have to be face-painted buzzkills about it.” He takes a sip from the can of Monster Energy next to the couch. He’s not sure how old it is but the fizz is definitely gone. 

"_Fucking_ Clowns. But anyways, you know what the weird thing was?”

“I’m sure you are going to tell me any second now.”

“The weird thing was.” Gerard continues. “That they still applauded when we were done with the set. Even though they didn’t like it.” He turns on the TV and hangs his head down from the sofa. Ever since Bert fixed the TV it shows everything upside down.

“Sheep mentality.” Bert says. “You know how nerds are.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Gerard sighs and tries to peel off his socks with his toes. It proves to be more difficult than he had anticipated. “What’d you do while I was gone?”

“Oh, this and that.” Bert turns a page of his book. “Reading about this dude who tried to alter his DNA so he could spend more hours sleeping. Compared to the average human, I mean. Then I dozed off for a few minutes.”

“So you spent the whole day sleeping?”

“I wasn’t just sleeping.” Bert objects. “I also made a Not-To-Do-List.”

“A Not-To-Do-List?”

He nods and puts aside his book. Bert isn’t wearing pants. His briefs say ‘These goods belong to the collective’ across the ass. 

“A list with things that I deem harmful to me, others, or the environment. In the evening I cross off everything I didn’t do and feel good about myself.”

“After you spent the day lying in the hammock?”

“Wasn’t much else left to do.”

Gerard is starting to feel nauseous because of the blood flowing into his head. “You know, instead of hanging from the couch like bats we could just turn the TV upside down.”

“Okay, you do it.” Bert says. He licks his finger and flips the page. Licks his finger, flips the page. Licks his finger –

“Hey have you cleaned the bathroom while I was gone?”

“Number five.”

“What?” Gerard asks.

“Number five on my Not-To-Do-List. Harmful to me.”

“Okay, but have you considered that it is both harmful to others” He points at himself, mouthing ‘me’ “and the environment if you don’t clean it, and that those two factors outweigh the negative effects it would have on your happiness?”

Bert nods. “Yes, and I have decided to follow Justin Bieber’s advice and love myself. And I don’t know about you Archibald, but I would never make a loved one do something that jeopardizes their happiness.”

He thinks about that one time he tried to blackmail Bert into doing the dishes even though it was Gerard’s turn. “Can’t relate, but fair enough. Could you please turn me around; I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

Bert comes over, lifts Gerard and puts him on his feet. “Better?” He asks.

Gerard nods. “Yeah, thank you.”

“Fuck off.” Bert says. An alarm goes off. He pulls a clock out of the pockets of his hoodie. “Alright I’m going to go to sleep now.”

“Isn’t it hard?” Gerard asks. “Constantly trying to subvert expectations?”

“Eh, it’s fine.” Bert says and lies down in the hammock. “Good day.”

***

The two of them are in New York over the weekend, Gerard because he wanted to go to Comic Con and Bert because he was bored.

“Y’know,” Gerard says. “One day I am going to write comics and I am going to sit in one of those booths and Sir Patrick Stewart will ask me for an autograph.”

“I would read those comics. But what’s up with you fixation on bald men?” Bert asks.

“What’s up with your fixation on struggling artists with long blonde hair?” Gerard asks. Bert looks at him strangely. (His hair is brown again. He loudly announced that he hated it right after Gerard was finished dyeing it for him but he hasn’t changed it back so far.)

“It doesn’t have to be _blondes_.” He says. 

Two girls in cosplay approach them. One is blonde and wears a blue catsuit with red and white details, one is brunette and wears what appears to be a Black Widow outfit with a metal arm made out of old soda cans attached to it.

“Can you please take a picture of us?” The brunette asks.

Bert shrugs. “Sure, why not. You look kinda cool.” He takes a disposable camera out of the pockets of his cargo shorts and snaps a picture.

“No, with our camera.” She says.

“Oh.” Bert says. “Nah.”

“I can do it.” Gerard offers. The girl hands him the camera and he takes a few pictures of them in front of different backgrounds. When he’s done Bert has disappeared.

He finds him five minutes later, in a fistfight with a cosplayer. For a second he contemplates if he should step in or start filming on his phone like the other bystanders.

They hadn’t really been in the mood to go all out with their outfits today so Gerard just put on an old Wonder Woman outfit and doodled a metal arm design on Bert’s arm because he figured that his shaggy hair, eyeliner and quite impressive glare made him look enough like the Winter Soldier in civvies. In an alternate universe where the serum made Steve tall and Bucky small, perhaps.

“Hey guys, come on…” He says finally.

Bert looks up with a wild look in his eyes. “Thor started it!” He snaps.

“I’m Magneto!” The cosplayer yells, vaguely unhinged.

“Sure thing, hammerboy.” Bert says.

“I AM MAGNETO!” The cosplayer repeats with something bordering on desperation in his voice. “See, the helmet is a completely different shape and the cape is not fucking red, it’s magenta!”

“Is it, though?” Gerard says.

“I am Magneto!”

Bert taps on the shoulder of a young Professor X, presumably Magneto’s boyfriend, standing next to them. “Hey buddy can you take a picture of us?”

“Sure thing, dude.” Professor X says.

Bert hands him his camera. “Can you go a bit further back?” He pulls Gerard to his side and grabs his hand. Gerard smiles for the camera. Professor X goes a bit further back.

“Run!” Bert whisper-shouts into Gerard’s ear and pulls him along right as the cosplayer hits the shutter.

They take off towards the exit, weaving between other visitors, Gerard stumbling over his feet a couple times. His heels aren’t crazy high but he’s not the best at running even when he’s not dressed in several layers of plastic and Styrofoam.

Bert stops them once they get outside. "That always confuses the hell out of them!" He says, panting heavily. 

Really, both of them are terribly out of shape; Gerard should probably convince Bert that they should stop smoking. As a new year’s resolution, maybe…

Someone whistles at them.

“Fuck off!” Bert yells. “Get yourself your own hot Wonder Woman!”

Gerard grins and tugs at his hand. His fingers are going kind of numb but he’s not going to let go anytime soon. “What now?”

Bert turns to him with a bright smile. He pulls a handful of bike locks out of his pants.

“Now, we are going to chain random bicycles to their stands, get starbucks, and watch from the other side of the street.”

“Okay.” Gerard says. “But you’re paying for the coffee.”

***

Gerard takes a sip of his coffee and rubs at his eyes. He’s having breakfast on the fire escape this morning. The sounds of their kitchen radio are barely audible over the noises of the city.

“Chrch- After a brief period of relaxation yesterday evening the economic situation has gotten tense again. I’m sitting here with an expert.”

“Hello.” The expert says.

“What do you, as an expert, think about the current situation?” The host asks.

“I, as an expert, think that we should keep fearing for our jobs. Furthermore, I propose that we meet the working class with contempt to mask our fear that we could one day become one of them. Finally, we should try and shift the blame to minorities. Those are all simple steps; they just have to be taken and followed accordingly.”

Gerard takes another sip of his coffee.

“I understand,” The host says. “That was an expert’s opinion. We are now talking to-“

Bert turns off the radio, jumps through the window with a ninja roll and lands on his ass right next to Gerard. “Quick!” He yells, slams down two notepads and sets a timer. “You have five minutes to write down your weekly plan for making the world a better place!”

He starts scribbling furiously.

Gerard takes a sip of his coffee. “And what are we going to do then?”

“What we do every week, André!” Bert says. “Try to achieve world domination!”

Gerard nods, yawns, and takes- The coffee is empty. Damn it.

“Quick, quick!” Bert urges.

He nods, nibbles on his pencil and stares at the notepad. The timer goes off. Gerard wakes up.

“Alright!” Bert exclaims and looks up at him. “Time’s up; what’d you write down?”

“You first.” Gerard says.

“I’m going to put more energy into the band and write songs that appeal to the masses while being edgy enough to ensure that mainly angsty teens and members of the alternative scene are going to like them. Then, once I’ve established an underground following I am going to make a politically charged but ultimately hollow album as a commentary on the state of our society that, ironically, is going to be what finally brings us mainstream success. I will then kick out all the other band members and produce soulless pop songs that bring in enough money that I can fund my own presidential campaign. My former teenage fans who will be of voting age by then are going to ensure me a spot as a top candidate in the next elections which I am going to win with a mixture of charm, religious metaphors and sexy photo-shoots. I will then redistribute wealth and end capitalism, first in the USA, then worldwide.”

Gerard blinks and yawns.

“Your reaction is not satisfactory. “

“Eh.” Gerard says and yawns again.

“And what’s your idea?” Bert asks.

“Ehh. Do you really want to know what I think?”

“Of course!”

“I was just thinking. Every morning.” Gerard sighs. “Really, every morning. You have to get up.”

Bert’s face falls. He drops his pen.

“Every. Morning.” He says again, shaking his head.

They sit there in silence for a few minutes. Bert crumples up the top page of his notepad and throws it down onto the streets.

Gerard wakes up.

Bert takes a hit of his blunt. “Have you ever thought about.” He places the blunt in their windowbox. “What a small difference there is between ‘uninformed’ and ‘uniformed’?” He spits into the box.

“Oh my god, that’s fucking disgusting.” Gerard says, horrified.

“What, do you want me to spit down onto the sidewalk?” Bert spits into the box again, for good measure.

Gerard looks at their dead kitchen herbs and shakes his head. “What a massacre.”

“Are you insinuating,” Bert starts, adjusting the cape he pulled on against the chill of the early morning “That I am to blame for the death of our plants?”

“Well, either that, or Ray and Iero have been dropping pesticides into our windowbox when we aren’t looking. “

“Au contraire,” Bert says, pronouncing it in a way that makes it rhyme with ‘oh dear’. “I think those herbs died because I didn’t spit at them _enough_.”

“I always felt like I was getting a little high from the parsley.”

He picks at the last bit of black nail polish on his thumbnail. Why is it that the last bit is always the hardest to get off?

Bert closes a book he was holding, wiggles around a little and starts humming a national anthem. Not the national Anthem. A national anthem. Gerard is pretty sure he heard it on TV as a kid when the Olympics came on but he can’t remember which country it belongs to. The contents of Bert’s pockets jingle rhythmically when he starts tapping his foot. There seems to be a cylindrical object in one of them. The shape is vaguely familiar.

“Bert.” Gerard says. “What do you have in your pockets.”

“Oh, this and that.” Bert replies and shrugs. He’s not making eye contact.

“Bert.” Gerard says. “Do you have my Bluetooth speaker in there.”

“No,” Bert lies.

“Really.” Gerard says. “Because if you did that would be a massive breach of trust.”

“Then it’s good that I didn’t take it, isn’t it?” Bert says and gets up. He tries to ninja roll back into their kitchen but stumbles along the way when his cape gets caught in the window frame. Gerard follows him inside as he flops down and onto the hammock.

“Can you paint my nails?” Gerard asks, inspecting the white spots on his thumbnail. What did those indicate again? Not enough calcium? Magnesium? Too much stress?

“No, sorry.” Bert says. “I have to finish my diary entry and then I have to go to band practice for four to five hours.”

It’s probably stress, Gerard thinks. “Since when do you use a diary? I distinctly remember you making fun of the entire cast of ‘The Vampire Diaries’ for doing that when we watched it last month.”

“People change.” Bert replies loftily. “But don’t you dare read it, that would be a…” He pauses dramatically. “Massive breach of trust." He then scribbles something onto a random page and closes the book again.

He puts the diary in a drawer, locks it, pulls on his torn up jean jacket with the patches Gerard helped him sew on and leaves.

“Hm.” Gerard says and looks at the drawer. The key is still in the lock.

Suddenly he hears the voice of princess Leia in his head. “Luke, Luke!” She yells. “A trap, a trap!”

He opens the drawer carefully. Nothing explodes. He takes out the book and reads:

“Hello stupid diary,

I am already bored with this. I do not wish to look back and reread whatever bullshit I thought about today. Earlier I was wondering how many colleges in the USA removed Kant from the curriculum because of his obscene name. After that I was trying to come up with a swear word that you can yell specifically when you notice that someone has been fucking with you. I propose ‘Doinks’.

I am mostly writing right now so I seem busy when Gerard, my roommate, looks at me. I can tell that he is going to ask me to paint his nails again by the way he’s been chewing on his cuticles and I do not think that I will be able to hold his hand for a prolonged amount of time without combusting or like, jumping up to kiss the red spot under his eye. I hate his stupid fucking face and I hate his stupid cute laugh and I want to make out with him 24/7. In a gay way.

To be entirely honest, I only started this diary because I broke Gerard’s Bluetooth speaker and I didn’t know how to tell him and I know that he won’t be able to resist reading this once I leave.

Ha! You’re easier to play than a kazoo, dude.

Well, now you know what happened to your speaker and also about my huge gay crush on you but you can’t do anything about it because 1) We’d be even, massive-breach-of-trust-wise so you can’t be mad at me (or be weird about it in case I’ve been reading the signals wrong and you’re secretly really into Iero) and 2) Now you will have to live with this knowledge, unable to do anything about it because I will know immediately that you read my diary and be really annoying about it. So like no matter what you do, you’re gonna suffer.

Love, Bert :D

Ps: Bring Pringles if you go to the store later”

“Doinks.” Gerard says.

***

Surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the dynamic of their friendship) sucking face every now and then doesn’t really change anything between them. Bert lets Gerard join him in the hammock from time to time so they can cuddle while they make plans for world domination and answer work emails, respectively, and Gerard lets Bert sleep in his bed. They both overheat pretty fast so the only parts of their bodies that touch are their feet. Gerard takes Bert’s big toe between his own toes sometimes and just holds it for a while and Bert lets him.

They are going shopping. Bert is wearing a pink muscle shirt with cutouts where his nipples are. When Gerard asks him why, he replies that after spending thousands of dollars on his top surgery he should be allowed to flaunt the results. He can’t argue with that.

“Did you get the beans and the onions?” Gerard asks, looking up from his shopping list.

“Come as you are.” Kurt Cobain sings. Bert is blasting Nirvana from Gerard’s new Bluetooth speaker and speeding down the aisle in a shopping cart.

**[Plot hole]**

(_**Plot Hole: **In fiction, a **plot hole**, **plothole** or **plot error** is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story's plot.[1] Such inconsistencies include things as illogical, unlikely or impossible events,[2] and statements or events that contradict earlier events in the storyline. The term is more loosely also applied to "loose ends" in a plot – side-lined story elements that remain unresolved by the end of the plot.)_

They are in the backroom of a seedy club, tied together back to back. They are both wearing fancy vampire costumes and masks, almost as if they had been at a masquerade ball. There are three people who are pointing guns at them. They are in Miami. Gerard blew up the car of their boss. This means trouble. 

One of their guards puts on a red baseball cap.

“Hey, is it just me or does that dude kind of look like Mario?” Bert asks.

“Huh?”

“Mario.”

“What?”

“Super Mario. Nintendo?”

“Oooooh shit you’re right.” Gerard says and giggles. “Holy shit, Super Mario.”

Mario starts yelling at them. His face turns as red as his hat and his moustache quivers.

“Hey maybe the whole thing with Bowser made him realize how much more fun it is to be the kidnapper than the kidnappee.” Bert whispers.

“I dunno.” Gerard replies. “Wasn’t it Peach who got kidnapped? I don’t think Mario ever had to escape from somewhere.”

Mario pulls out a gun.

“Fair.” Bert says. “Maybe he’s mad that you blew up his Mario Kart?”

Gerard loses it. Mario does, too. He clicks off the safety of the gun and steps closer towards them.

“On three!” Bert whispers. “One, two –“

They shake off their restraints. Gerard ducks and tries to tackle Luigi. Meanwhile Bert launches himself at Mario, yelling “This is for fucking with my boyfriend!” A shot goes off.

**[Plot hole]**

Gerard is racing along a boardwalk on roller blades, Bert following closely behind him on an e-scooter. He cracks an egg on his head and throws the shells at Bert who catches them.

“You’ll never get away with this!” Their chaser yells.

“I fucked your father!” Bert yells. Gerard holds onto his scooter and let's him pull him along. Roller blading is surprisingly exhausting. “Remember that one game of Jenga?” He asks. His boyfriend lights up.

“Oh hell yeah.”

**[Plot hole]**

“I can’t keep us in the air for much longer!” Gerard yells. The wing of their flying convertible grazes the crown of a nearby tree.

“Pull her up! Pull her up!” Bert screams. There’s a briefcase handcuffed to his left hand. It contains one million dollars.

"Save yourself, Bert! You know we only have one parachute!

“Gerard Artemis Way, we are in this together.” Bert says and wraps his arms around Gerard. He tries to hold onto Bert as well, without losing his hold on the steering wheel.

“Do you trust me?” Bert asks.

"I do." He replies.

**[Plot Hole]**

Gerard adds the beans and the onions to the pan. Bert sits down on the counter and lets his head drop back against the wall.

“What a day, huh?”

“Yeah.” Gerard agrees and presses a quick kiss to Bert's cheek. “What a day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright this is it! I might write a part two at some point but for now this is the end :D  
Have a nice day uwu xx

**Author's Note:**

> Ok thanx 4 reading kingz please leave me kudoz or sum kind w0rds if u feel up to it k thx keep it scemo my dudez owo


End file.
